Orbits of Absence
by windspans
Summary: AU with daemons. Stark or not, it's harder to lie to yourself when a part of your soul can stand there and look at you in the eye.


Cyricus hasn't flown since the night their father killed Lady. He's a mouse now, sometimes a cat—always something small and soft, to burrow into her sleeves or to perch on her shoulder. Arya doesn't understand; Kerr at her side prowls, wearing the skin of some great cat the way she wears her rage. Sansa wants to hate her for that.

It's alright during the day, when the light bathes the courts and her eyes are full of the splendor, the people, knights and ladies like all she's ever dreamed of. It's harder when she retires for the evening; that is when she remembers.

"I wish she would stop," she whispers on the nights where wolf howls rise from Arya's window, and Cyr, an ermine in his winter coat, nuzzles at her face. Her sister should know better. They're not at home anymore, they can't just do what they want. She's asking for trouble, Sansa thinks, and tells Cyr so, because their father is too busy these days to do anything about Arya and telling her daemon is better, if only slightly, than staying entirely silent.

"She's angry," Cyr says, quietly. "She lost her wolf, too."

"She's always angry. And it was her fault Nymeria went away, not mine." _And Nymeria is still alive_. _Not like Lady_. This she doesn't say, because the hurt is still there if she pokes at it, and she doesn't need to anyway. Cyr is part of her. He knows her grief, and the way it makes her throat close up, her eyes sting. When it happened he didn't speak to anyone but her for days, not even to Elke when she looked at them the way she does when Father feels bad for something but didn't know what to say to make up for it. He does that face a lot these days.

"She's still your sister," Cyr says, and his tongue is rough against her cheek. He used to make a beautiful wolf, but he won't do it anymore. He's stopped flying. He's quieter now. She asked him about it, once, but all he said was _I'm thinking of the songs._

"We should sleep," Cyr says now in the dark. His eyes shine a deep golden. "The tourney is tomorrow. It'll be beautiful."

Yes, it will. "Maybe Joffrey will look at us again." Kerr outside is still howling, but she drowns out the sound, curls around Cyr and closes her eyes.

Tomorrow she will see a man die in front of her and Cyr will not flinch back. There will be no tears rising to her eyes. Not a single one.

The second week Syrio makes Kerr stand by the doorway while they practice, forbids him to move even as he pushes Arya to the other side of the room. Marzia stays with him, raised on her coils in a languid pose that they've both learned is anything but.

It starts with her breath staggering to come out of her lungs, in a way that isn't just due to the exertion; then it's a tugging sensation in her heart, and then it's like it's trying to pull itself out of her chest, past her lungs and ribs and skin.

They're only twenty feet apart, barely, but it feels like a whole country. Kerr is pawing at the ground, low whines rising from his mouth, and he's trembling even worse than Cyr did when the queen had called for Sansa to tell her version of the story, back on the Kingsroad.

Arya wants nothing more than to run back to him, to take his head in her hands and not let go until the pain stops. But Syrio's watching her and she doesn't want to disappoint him; when he says "Again" she lunges, her hands sweaty and blood pounding in her ears.

Then she screams, because suddenly she's too far, she can't breathe, can't _feel Kerr_ anymore, vision flashing black for a second before he's leapt over Marzia in defiance of her warning hiss, claws clicking over the floor until he's got his paws on her shoulder, his muzzle against her face.

The pressure on her chest eases, but there's still a painful twang to it, like a cut still cicatrizing. "What was that for?" she hears Kerr growl up at Syrio, in her stead since she is just remembering how it feels to breathe. Speech is still a way off.

"In a battle, you must be ready for anything," Syrio says, mildly. "If you are separated, what will you do? Fall?" He clicks his teeth. "If you fall you are dead."

"We would never—no one would—" It's not something that should even bear consideration. Your daemon stays with you, always, and no one comes in-between. No one touches someone else's daemon. It's impossible, unthinkable, and the mere thought of it sends a wave of nausea through them.

"Maybe not. Maybe yes. But you must learn." Marzia slithers up to them, and only now does Arya realize that neither her nor Syrio had shown the slightest sign of discomfort through it all. She winds herself up his leg, his chest, then comes to drape herself over his shoulder, brown and unassuming and dangerous.

"It can be done," she says in that smooth, foreign hiss of hers. "Fear cuts deeper than swords, you know this. And if you no longer need to fear distance, then it will be one less sword for your enemies to wield."

Arya does not want to understand, but she thinks maybe some small part of her does.

Syrio picks up the sword she'd dropped when she'd fallen, and throws it to her. She catches it, but only barely.

_Every hurt is a lesson, and every lesson makes you better. _Arya knows this now.

She gets to her feet, and Kerr reluctantly slinks away, the fur along his neck raised and his teeth half-bared in a snarl he's not sure who to direct at. Syrio looks at her, and says "Again."

They're an odd sight, the lynx and the hedgehog sitting together and whispering. The other men's daemons are sprawled around the hall, curled up against the cold or snug against their humans; the pair are the only ones sitting a bit apart, as far as the bond can stretch without bringing pain, and Ghost hovers around them, curious but silent as always.

Jon kind of misses the warm press of Moira on his thigh, but at least Sam's less edgy now. He still looks like he would scream like a baby if the door slammed suddenly, but at least he wouldn't cry.

Probably.

"Don't look up now," Pyp's squirrel daemon mock-whispers across the table. "But if stares could kill the bitch would have the both of you dead a hundred times over by now."

Grenn snorts. Jon risks a glance up, feigning disinterest, and yes, Alliser's lean wolfhound is eyeing them with the sort of distaste he's more used to seeing on Lady Stark.

_Let her watch_, he thinks. It won't change a thing; Thorne will continue to try and grind them down, and they'll keep improving in spite and against him. Jon's sure he's taught the others more than the man has.

Behind them Lule laughs, her voice oddly clear, and then stops, startled by her own amusement. Moira nudges her, careful to avoid the spines, teeth bared in a lynx's approximation of a grin. There's an odd look on Sam's face, like he's still not comfortable with having someone else's daemon touching his but he wants to be.

Jon thinks of Arya, and how their daemons would play-wrestle while they sparred, and how Bran's Alphais had trouble flying until Robb's Sara had taken her under her wing. Pyp's singing now, some sort of dirty song he picked up before he came here. The other boys are laughing, and Sam's shoulders aren't quite as tightly-bunched as before.

Jon's thinking, he could grow to love them all. It's a painful thought, but it's the good kind of ache, like a muscle growing stronger after use.

Alphais can't remember anything either. Robb asked, maester Luwin asked—Alphais looked up with gold-green eyes and shook her head, then laid back her head on his lap opposite Summer.

The days drag on.

At first Alphais had taken on the largest shapes they could think of—_Look_, they'd wanted to scream, _I'm still alive. I can be strong._

Then they'd realized it only made the looks people set on Bran's useless legs worse, and they'd stopped. They still look, yes, because Hodor's not small and certainly not stealthy, but at least it's not just them now.

At least he can ride, though after that one time he's careful, and Robb won't let him go on his own. It's easier to go to the godswood; Osha's strong and she carries him on hobbled feet, while her wild goose daemon flies abovehead.

He's tired of lessons and being polite to people who won't stop staring pityingly, and he misses his parents and the girls and the way things were before.

Bran prays. He thinks, _Please bring them back to me_, he asks _Let them all be alright_.

He says, _Take the dreams away, or tell me what they mean._

Osha shakes her head at him, and she says it's never that easy. Bran pretends he doesn't hear her, and watches as Alphais buzzes dragonfly-bright over the hot springs.

(In the dark he asks her, once, _What do you recall?_ because he fell first, he thinks he remembers that; and she was the one who could grow wings, if only to slow her fall.

She wore the shape of a serpent, cool scales against his fevered head and eyes like distant stars. She said _I remember the crows, and gold_, and that was the end of that.)

He gets back to the castle.

The day after they get the letter, and Robb calls for war.

"We weren't meant for this," Sara says. It's evening, and he's the last one here, bent over the maps and pushing lion- and wolf-shaped blocks of wood around. His eyes burn and his heart is still pounding, though the battle has been over for hours now.

The men are resting, or eating. _Or dressing their wounds, or mourning_.

He shakes his head. Grey Wind raises his head from the floor, flicks an ear. Makes a low sound, that sounds almost questioning. "It's alright," Robb says, and allows himself to sink down in his seat. No one's watching him anymore. For a hour at least he can be Robb Stark instead of Lord of Winterfell. The direwolf rises to his feet and pads to him, and his fur is warm under Robb's hand, matted though it is from the night's fighting.

Sara shifts on her perch.

"We won," Robb snaps at her.

Her eyes are amber and hard. They remind him of Elke, the way she looked when their father had to deliver a death sentence. It's an odd kind of comfort. She says nothing.

She doesn't have to. It's all too fresh in his mind, the way his men fell around him, the scream of horses gutted and stumbling to the ground, the sickly soft sound of daemons disappearing with their human's last gurgle. How in the moonlight everything was just a succession of flashes, and his body falling back into instinct, block parry slash urge your horse forward and hack slash parry and go again. How an arrow took his destrier down from under him and how Sara had dived down into an incoming rider's face just as Summer had lunged for him, distracting the man enough for Robb to cut him down, bought time for him to find another mount.

How many dead there, on top of those he'd sent to the slaughter on another field? Sara hadn't allowed him to stop and count, but when Jaime Lannister had come charging there'd been no choice but to watch as he'd cut down his guard, the smile on his face as grotesque as the red snarl that'd cut across his daemon's maw in a mad parody of laughter before the numbers had finally cut the horse from under him and torn the sword from his hand.

"Robb," his mother says, and he jolts in his seat. She smiles at him, a tired kind of smile that pulls at his heart and has him on his feet to meet her halfway, the way he wishes he could have when she'd first arrived.

Her hand is at the back of his neck, warm and comforting even though he's taller now. On the side there's a sound of wings, and the slow warmth in his chest that means Sara and Stian are touching, feathers against feathers, brown against white.

A hand is trailing down to grasp his. The gloves are gone but he thinks there's still blood on it, where it seeped down his sleeve.

He's not sure who's holding on to who, but he knows he's not going to let go. They've got his father, and they hurt Bran. The North remembers, and winter stops for no one.

Sara's eyes are burnished gold, and she won't let him look away.

_We weren't meant for this_, she said, but he thinks he hears it now, what she'd left unsaid—

_We'll make it work anyway._

Rickon's in the dark. It's cold and he's alone, except for Shaggy. But Shaggy doesn't speak, so it's the same, really, just a bit warmer and softer than it could be otherwise.

There's the dark everywhere around, and torches cold and dead, and faces carved out of stone he feels out with outstretched hands and hungry fingers, and graves still open and waiting for someone to come and fill them.

Rickon's in the dark, and when it happens he _knows_, and he's scared and angry and hurt all at once.

"He's dead," someone says, and it's him but it's not, and he looks down to his daemon's eyes, wild as a blizzard coming in at night, and he can't remember, doesn't know her name.


End file.
